


Toast

by saintsrow2



Category: Saints Row
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 10:22:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10739751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintsrow2/pseuds/saintsrow2
Summary: Boss wakes up to the smell of burnt toast. They do not remember if they dreamt. They lie back in bed and stare up at the ceiling, a blank white canvas marred only by a couple of bullet holes. Not enough to spoil the place. The bed they’re in could sleep three, but right now it’s just them, the man who should be lying behind them is too busy in the kitchen, burning toast.





	Toast

Boss wakes up to the smell of burnt toast. They do not remember if they dreamt. They lie back in bed and stare up at the ceiling, a blank white canvas marred only by a couple of bullet holes. Not enough to spoil the place. The bed they’re in could sleep three, but right now it’s just them, the man who should be lying behind them is too busy in the kitchen, burning toast.

Boss rolls out of bed, dragging the sheets along after them, shivering in the cool air. The clock on their phone says it is 1:12 pm. They quickly put on some shorts, and then a T-shirt when they see the goosebumps on their arms. The room itself is a mess; clothes spread across the floor, bottles and glasses left lying around, discarded fast food cartons next to – but not inside – the bin. They used to be a lot tidier, when they lived alone, but they don’t anymore and the mess doesn’t really seem like such a problem. The furniture is still expensive and new, shiny polished wood and metal. Boss will never stop loving being able to buy the best just for the hell of it.

They leave the bedroom and walk across the vast space of their penthouse apartment. Through the huge bank of windows on the wall, they can see the whole Stilwater skyline. The sky is burnt orange by the summer sun scorching the city, but the air conditioning must be on full blast, because Boss can’t feel any of that heat. They almost feel frozen, until they walk into the kitchen and see the source of the burnt toast, and then they feel warm all the way through.

Johnny Gat is in his underwear, moving loudly sizzling bacon and eggs around a pan while the offending toast smokes gently on a plate next to the stove. Boss grabs one of the stools from the bar and drags it over to him, parking it next to Johnny and leaning on the counter beside him.

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” Johnny says.

“I’m surprised the fucking fire alarm didn’t go off,” Boss says.

“Yeah, I fucked the toast up,” Johnny says, “but this bacon is gonna be perfect.”

Boss eats a slice of burnt toast anyway, because they don’t like wasting food, and because Johnny made it for them. They watch him, half the cooking and half just admiring how good he looks when he’s stripped down. In the background, the radio plays The Mix just loud enough to be heard.

“What’s on the to-do list today?” Boss says.

“Nothing,” Johnny says. “We’re on vacation.”

“Fuck.”

“Only you would be upset about time off. You’re a fucking workaholic.” It’s said with love, not anger. Boss knows Johnny admires how much they get done. It doesn’t need to be said.

There’s plenty the Boss could still do, even if it’s ‘time off’. They’re halfway through a painting they were going to send to an art show next month, they still haven’t signed off the final few pieces for the Saints fall fashion line, they need to kill that journalist who was spreading rumours about them – but looking at Johnny, they decide to pass on all of it. It can all wait another day, and today’s a good day. The sun is out, Johnny is making breakfast, they just bought a fresh load of ammo and the cops are paid off for the rest of the month.

“What do you wanna do?” Boss says, as Johnny dolls out bacon and eggs to them both.

“I dunno,” Johnny says. “We should go out for a drive.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

Maybe they’ll drive up Mt Claflin with a cooler of beer and some good weed. Maybe they’ll end up doing a drive-by. Boss is open to ideas. They pour themselves and Johnny some coffee.

 _Karma Chameleon_ comes on the radio and Boss laughs suddenly enough to make Johnny jump.

“What?” He says.

“Don’t you remember?” Boss says. “This fucking song was on the radio all summer long when we first came back.”

“Yeah…” Johnny says, eyes lighting up. “This and… What was that one you loved?”

“ _Gangsta Bitch_? That’s still my shit.”

“No, I know that one. The one about ruling the world.”

“That’s it. _Everybody Wants to Rule the World_. Tears for Fears.”

“Right, yeah. Now that was a good song. This is fuckin’ garbage.”

“ _Karma Chameleon_ is great.”

“You got no fucking taste.”

“Explains why you’re here.”

Johnny laughs, punches them on the shoulder. Boss leans in, kisses him on the cheek, then on the lips, and then on the lips another time, for good measure.

“Maybe the first thing we do today should be go back to bed,” Johnny says.

“We can do that,” Boss says. They finish their coffee. “Can you turn the AC down? I’m freezing to death in my own fucking apartment.”

“What are you talking about?” Johnny says. “It’s hotter than Hell in here. Why do you think I’m in my goddamn underwear?”

“Looks good,” Boss says.

Johnny just laughs, and does not turn down the AC. Boss decides they will put on more clothes, which is punishment enough for them both. They look outside again, through their big beautiful windows, and see that it is suddenly lashing down with rain.

“Oh, what the fuck?” Boss says. “Guess we won’t be driving a convertible.”

Convertibles aren’t really their style, anyway. They’re about to say this, before they turn around and see Johnny fucking around with the radio. They didn’t notice when he put jeans on.

“What are you doing?” They say.

“Sound’s all fucked up,” Johnny says.

The radio keeps making an odd chiming noise every few seconds, like the announcement before someone speaks over the intercom.

“We’ll buy a new one,” Boss says. “We could buy fifty.”

They don’t care about the radio. They can do anything now, anything they want. They got money and they got power and they got Johnny Gat to back them up. Boss has never felt less worried in their entire life, and they weren’t a person prone to fear in the first place.

“You don’t like boats,” Johnny says.

“Not fond of them,” Boss says, “given my history.”

“If you can’t ride boats, and you can’t ride planes, how are you going to escape this time?” Johnny says.

“The fuck you say?” Boss says. They can’t remember the last time they rode a plane. It was probably when they came to Stilwater, taking a plane from the mainland. Before that, when they came from America to England on a flight that took half a day they spent in a state of near hysteria. They don’t really remember it that well.

Johnny blinks, confused. “I said ‘why can’t we drive a convertible today?’ Are you ok, Boss?”

Boss glances back towards the window and sees Saint’s Row baking under the sun, looking like it’s hot enough to melt paint off the side of the old Church.

“I thought…” Boss trials off. “I think I might be kind of fucked up.”

Johnny studies their face with concern, touches their forehead like they’re a sick child.

“You’re freezing,” he says. His hand feels scalding hot to the touch.

“You’re burning up,” Boss says. “Are you sick?”

The smell of the toast is starting to make _them_ feel sick. Johnny snorts derisively, and they wait for him to say some tough man bullshit about never being sick a day in his life, but then he says;

“You ever learn how to fly a plane?”

“What?” Boss says. “Yeah, I can drive anything. You feeling alright, Johnny?”

Johnny is staring at them, all while the radio loudly shouts the same chiming noise over and over. When is someone going to speak through the intercom? Boss is waiting for a message, but there’s no one on the other side. Maybe they’re hallucinating. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“I can’t hear you,” Johnny says. “Did you give up talking again?”

Johnny is standing in the middle of Boss’ nice shiny kitchen wearing blue jeans and a white button up shirt, and he is soaked to the skin. Ultor took all the graffiti off the Church, their agents convinced Johnny to cover up his tattoos. Boss can’t explain why, but in that moment, those two events feel so obviously interconnected that they feel like they’ve hit on some great new discovery They want to tell Johnny about it, but he’s not listening to them. He’s mouthing words they can’t hear.

“You have to press the button on the intercom,” Boss says. “It only goes one way.”

Johnny holds a radio to his mouth and his voice comes in loud and clear through every speaker in the room; the jukebox, the TV, the radio in the kitchen that once played The Mix.

“Do you think I bled out, or do you think I drowned when you crashed the plane into the ocean?” Johnny says.

The Boss jumps back, and then they’re falling as their stool tilts backwards and throws them down onto the floor, hard. They lie there, breathless for a moment, staring up at the counter and their spilled coffee spilling down the side and onto the floor. Johnny leans over them.

“Jesus, are you alright?” He says.

He bends over and effortlessly hoists them off the floor and to their feet, letting them put an arm around his shoulders to keep them steady. His shirtless skin is soft under the Boss’ hand, and he smells the same as he always does; gun oil and cheap cologne.

“Yeah, I just fell,” Boss says. “I’ve lived through worse.”

“You need to go the fuck to bed,” Johnny says.

He spins them around and places a hand on either shoulder, marching them out of the kitchen and back across the huge expanse of their apartment, towards the bedroom.

“Only if you come with me,” Boss says.

“I plan on it,” Johnny laughs. “I ain’t going nowhere without you.”

A commercial for Freckle Bitch’s starts playing on the radio, and Boss is about to ask Johnny if he’s heard this one before, because it sounds familiar to them, it sounds old to them, but then they get a good look through the open bedroom door, and out into the open screaming skies above Steelport. Johnny’s hands on their shoulders are so strong, and try as they might, Boss can’t fight back against his grip. He keeps on driving them towards the door.

They can almost feel the wind on their face, the closer they get to the door, feel the force of the hungry sky pulling at them and trying to drag them away from Johnny, away from their beautiful apartment in Stilwater, to spit them out into hostile skies above a city they don’t know and never wanted to know.

“I don’t want to,” Boss says.

“Do you ever think about Hell?” Johnny says. “Did you think, when you were on that boat, burning, that it might be like Hell?”

“Johnny, stop,” Boss says. “Let’s just stay here. Let’s not go anywhere.”

They have never heard themselves beg before.

“Right on,” Johnny says. “I’ll see you in Stilwater.”

 “How can I go back there without you?” Boss says.

Johnny is still pushing, and they are still struggling, still fighting to stop themselves from being propelled across the room and towards the door. They fight, but the weight of his hands on their shoulders is immense. They push to try and turn around, against his grip, against the immeasurable weight of him dragging them down, but when they finally manage to just look up behind them, Johnny isn’t there at all. And there’s nothing left to hold them back as they fall out of the door and into the empty skies below.

* * *

The bed in Shaundi’s ex’s place is tiny. When Boss wakes up, with a start like they’ve been scared awake, they’re curled up on the mattress so tightly that they’ve pulled a muscle in their neck. They force themselves to uncurl, once their eyes are open, to stretch out and take up the little of the room that they have. Their back hurts.

Boss can smell burning toast. Already fully dressed, they clamber out of bed and out of the bedroom to look over the rest of the tiny apartment. But once out of the bedroom door they realise it must have been one of the neighbours, because there’s no one there with them at all.


End file.
